An informative post describing the various ways to model business processes can be found at Active Knowledge Modeling.
In addition to the common transformational process models, this post discusses block structured languages, storytelling, and process modeling languages that are hierarchical, flow-oriented, role-oriented, communication-oriented, declarative, goal-oriented, timelines, product and document state machines etc.
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For those of you are not always following the analysts and vendors so closely to stay up to date on new reports, I thought I would share with you the new Forrester WaveTM: Business Process Analysis, EA Tools, And IT Planning, Q1 2009 report.
In this second release of Forrester’s assessment of enterprise architecture and business process analysis (BPA) tools, Forrester assessed nine leading vendors in a 93-criteria evaluation. We found that IDS Scheer, Casewise, MEGA, Metastorm, and Troux Technologies lead the pack for general EA tool usage. For the more specific IT planning usage category, these Leaders are joined by the most powerful vendor in this specific category: alfabet. The Leaders are followed by IBM, a Strong Performer in all three categories; iGrafx, a Strong Performer in the business process analysis category and the general EA category; and Sybase, a Contender in all three categories.
Source: Forrester Wave Report, Executive Summary
One aspect of the report that struck me was that their seems to be a very mixed set of vendors with similar functionality (Enterprise asset modelling , BI, repositories, integration meta models etc.) but many very different/diverse areas of focus and associated value for adoption by the business and IT. There does not seem to be any major suprises/changes in the terms of the vendors postions listed in the report but this left me wondering:
I recognise that not all BPA/EA tools are created equal, but where are all the other EA vendors in this area and what type of adoption do they have e.g. Qualiware, Promis, Sparx Systems, Orbussoftware etc. not to mention any of the Open Source (OSS) tools e.g. iteraplan, ADONIS, Prote’ge’?
How long before BPA vendors such as IDS Scheer, Casewise etc. start extending their BPA capabilities into areas that have traditionally been the sole domain of EA modelling , repository and BPMS tools? Since the Proforma acquisition, Metastom have an end to end BPA/EA/BPMS capability that should put them in a very good position in my opinion.
Will this toolset convergence (if any) be seen as the next evolution in the convergence of SOA, BPM, EA and by extension what value will be delivered to organisations?
Will this convergence (if any) be too big a leap for organisations to adopt, given that many are finding the individual adoption of EA, BPM and SOA initiatives challenging?
I would be interested to hear your thoughts…
A copy of the Forrester report can be downloaded here or from many of the vendors sites listed in the report.
A copy of the Gartner BPMS Magic Quadrant 2007 can be found here.
This post is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Individual reports and their contents are under Copyright of Forrester and Gartner respectively.
Business Process Management (BPM)-InSights 